A great sportsman isn't just a player – he is a presence and a brand whose reputation can easily mask a dropping off in form.
But as an opponent, it takes deep confidence to say to yourself, "Allan Donald has lost a yard", or "John McEnroe has lost a step". Cricket dressing-rooms often throw around the cliche, "Play the ball, not the man", as though it isn't Shane Warne who is bowling at you but some blond Aussie who may or may not be having a good day.
Easy to say, harder to do. It requires a healthy disdain for reputations and an all-important lack of vertigo. And vertigo – "dizziness or giddiness, a whirling sensation when the balance is disturbed" – is one of sport's great banana skins. Given that he already leading Roger Federer 5-2 in tour matches, will Andy Murray prove immune to the condition?
Federer and Murray, now fighting for the Australian Open, stand at opposite moments in their careers. Does Murray have the temperament not only to depose the old king, but also to crown himself? And is Federer, the most serene of champions, capable of scrapping his way back to the top?
A declining champion faces an uncomfortable predicament. His mastery may be waning, but the prize of his scalp endures. He might not be quite as good as he was, but that doesn't make beating him less alluring. The hunter becomes the hunted, as McEnroe put it in his declining years, and "those young guys were as keen for my blood as sharks in the water".
Federer was introduced to this alien feeling last year. But it isn't clear what Federer turns to in moments of crisis: anger isn't his style, rivalry has always seemed beneath him, and macho egotism would be grotesque to him. That is why facing defeat has not always brought out the best in Federer – he seems to regard it as a category error without an appropriate response.
But in this year's Wimbledon final, surely the greatest ever, we saw a different side of Federer. He doesn't really do angst. But on Centre Court we glimpsed a more human dimension beneath the zen exterior, as though he was being forced to access a different, unfamiliar strand of his personality to overcome this challenge. It might just have rebooted his career.
I cannot remember ever wanting someone to win a sports match more. And though Federer lost, the experience proved cathartic. He won the US Open soon after, brushing aside Murray in the final, a coda to the loss of his Wimbledon crown.
On Friday, against Marat Safin in Melbourne, Federer played superbly; masterful and elegant. But Federer might do well to keep Wimbledon defeat, not New York victory, near the top of his mind, a prompt to summon his hunger should it ever desert him in the scorching Melbourne sunshine. If your powers do wane, you can't wait until things start to go wrong. You have to summon your psychological retaliation in advance.
Nothing could be further from Murray's mind than decline. It has been a heady few months for him, in which he has been the men's tour's stand-out performer. Murray now stands on the cusp and no one knows how he will handle the jump.
One reason why sports careers are so hard to predict is that each quantum leap requires a new psychological skill. First making your mark, then upsetting a champion here or there, now becoming a consistent contender, and then finally taking up residence at the top. It is not only that more skill is required on every step of that journey; each is also a subtly different mental challenge.
One former team-mate of mine, a brilliantly talented batsmen, never recovered from the daunting reality of becoming a senior player. In his mind, he was still an emerging talent, who looked to wiser, older heads for constant soothing approval. When they retired one by one, he was faced with the unpleasant reality of having to provide reassurance from within. It proved beyond him, and he collapsed.
What works as a newcomer – I'm mixing it against Federer – may not work when you are expected not only to compete but also to win. Murray has proved he relishes a scrap, especially with the big guns. But soon, perhaps already, they will all be gunning for him. Can he embody the idea that he is destined not only to compete but also to conquer? That is what Federer did uniquely: project the aura of inevitability. You had to overcome not only his skill, but also rewrite the seemingly preordained Federer narrative – making even great opponents seem almost complicit.
If the two keep winning – and we haven't mentioned the small matter of Rafael Nadal – Federer and Murray will meet in the final. It might be 5-2 to Murray overall, but it's 1-0 to Federer in grand-slam finals. The next statistic in that sequence might prove the turning point, in different directions, for both of them.
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